Cameca - ARW Aligner Repeater

Summary : Cameca was a European based attempt from the research department of Thomson CSF to penetrate the new wafer stepper lithography market.

Cameca was a European based attempt from the research department of Thomson CSF to penetrate the new wafer stepper lithography market. GCA had already captured the major market share and strongly protected its signature catchphrase ‘Direct Step on Wafer’. So this unit was named the ARW repeater for ‘Aligner Repeater on Wafer’. But despite the hopes, this catchphrase never won over a large customer base and the Group slowly lost business while quietly fading away.

It was a technically sound system. It came in four different versions that could handle die sizes of 20X20mm at resolutions down to 1.3 µ or 5X5 mm for resolutions of 0.5 µ.